EU grants citizenship to 825,000 in 2017: Eurostat

BRUSSELS

EU countries granted citizenship to 825,000 applicants in 2017, according to the European statistics agency.

Some 83 percent of the applicants granted citizenship either came from non-EU countries or carried no citizenship, said Eurostat.

Moroccans, Albanians, Indians and Turks were among the nationalities that got the most citizenships, followed by Romanians, Pakistanis, and Poles, overall totaling over one-third of the citizenships granted.

With Britain’s Brexit date looming -- this March 29, if there is no delay -- the number of British citizens seeking citizenship in an EU country more than doubled in 2017 compared to 2016, from 6,555 to 14,911.

A total of 29,900 Turks got EU citizenship in 2017, with 50 percent getting citizenship in Germany, 17.8 percent in France, and 9.9 percent in the Netherlands.

Writing by Vakkas Dogantekin